As Daniel Krook mentions in his latest blog post, the IBM developerWorks site has just posted the last part of a series he's been writing about migrating a PHP application's backend over to DB2.

IBM developerWorks has just published the final part in our series on migrating a PHP application from MySQL to DB2. [...] In addition to sharing our own experience, the series highlights the number of resources available to you to carry out your own migration.

The series is broken up into four parts:

• Prepare for your migration
• Migrate your data
• Convert your PHP code
• Deploy your application

In a new post to his blog Daniel Krook mentions a series he, Mark Nusekabel and Yan Li Mu wrote on migrating a PHP application over from MySQL to DB2 as a backend.

IBM developerWorks has just published the first article in a series that Mark Nusekabel, Yan Li Mu and I wrote about our experience migrating a large PHP and MySQL application to DB2. In the four part series we look at preparation, switching databases, porting code, and finally deploying the application. This first installment covers the steps to plan and resources to consult when starting a migration project.

He gives links to a few other helpful resources if you're looking to make the move to DB2 like a redbook, a PHP developer's guide and an Amazon EC2 instance pre-configuured with IBM software.

The IBM developerWorks site has posted a tutorial (you'll need to log in) showing how to use native XML databases to speed up development time for your applications.

Native XML databases have grown in popularity along with XML, because data is stored as native XML, rather than through tables in a traditional database. Using a native XML database means that a change to the schema requires minimal changes to your code and no change to the database. PHP and Java developers can benefit greatly from using native XML databases

IT talks about how to connect to the database (in this case DB2), grab the XML data via a query and how to insert information back in via a web-based form. There's also an example showing how to make a "search" on the data and how to change the schema of the database on the fly as well.

On the IBM developerWorks website there's a new tutorial (part 2 of the series, here's part 1) about creating the DB2 Health Monitor sample app:

DB2 9 pureXML technology allows businesses to improve data integrity and avoid legacy data lock-in. It enables application developers to utilize the best storage medium for the task and eliminate the middle-tier application logic previously required to take advantage of Web services.

PHP's role in the creation is to generate the XML that the system needs to communicate between the application and the database.

Cal has posted the latest episode of the ZendCon Sessions podcast series today - episode four of Thornsten Rinne's "IBM DB2 with PHP 5.2 and AJAX" talk given at this past year's ZendCon.

Welcome to The ZendCon Sessions. This episode of The ZendCon Sessions was recorded live at ZendCon 2007 in Burlingame, CA. We hope you enjoy today's session as we listen to Thornsten Rinne present "IBM DB2 with PHP 5.2 and AJAX".

You know the drill - you can get it one of three ways: grab the mp3, listen on the page or the easiest option - subscribe to the feed and get each new episode delivered right to you.

According to a new article on InfoWorld today, Zend and IBM are working together to extend the reach of their combined technologies even further by focusing on more functionality around IBM's DB2 database.

Featured in the arrangement are enhanced IBM DB2 Express-C capabilities in IBM Zend Core for IBM, which is Zend's PHP offering. DB2 Express-C is IBM's hybrid relational-XML data server for accessing enterprise capabilities such as data replication, clustering and offsite disaster recovery.

Also included is new support for DB2 Connect technology to access i5/PS and z/OS DB2 data servers. DB2 Connect technology makes it easy to build PHP applications that leverage DB2 hosted on IBM System z and System i servers.

The article also mentions how users can use existing System i Linux partitions, System i BladeCenter and System x servers to take advantage of this new functionality. Zend will be providing the support for this new product (a "single support solution").

On the IBM developerWorks site, the next part of their tutorial series looking at working with AIX and PHP has been posted. This time, there's a focus on integrating a Java business application in using DB2 (version 9) as the backend.

It is possible to develop applications that employ both Java and PHP technology on AIX. You can use the Java programming language for the core logic (or redeploy an existing Java-based application), while gaining the benefits of PHP as a Web-based interface platform. In this article, the third of the series, find out how to connect the core application created in the second installment to a DB2 database for the storage of the survey questions and responses.

They talk some about database roles before working through the DB2 database installation. Then it's time to make the connection to the application, create the table structures and insert information.

Daniel Krook has announced the latest release from the CakePHP framework team - the new DB2 driver (alpha version) he submitted.

The CakePHP team has included the ibm_db2 driver that I submitted in the latest 1.2 development branch. I've sent out a call for alpha testers to put it through its paces.

If you'd like to help out and test it yourself, check out his post for instructions on grabbing the sample application, setting up the database, and what to change on the CakePHP configuration to get started.

Daniel Krook has a quick post about the DB2 driver he's created for the CakePHP framework:

I've just completed the initial version of the IBM DB2 interface that I've written for the CakePHP framework.

This driver can also be used with IBM Cloudscape, Apache Derby, and Sun Java DB because it employs the same ibm_db2 PECL extension for connecting to all of these RDBMSes.

Stay tuned to his blog for more details...

As mentioned on the Zend Developer Zone, there's a new article over on the IBM developerWorks website talking about getting Ajax and PHP to play nicely together with DB2 through Xajax.

Various PHP class libraries are available for using Ajax with PHP, among them Xajax, an open source, object-oriented, PHP class library. In this article, learn how to implement PHP, Ajax, and Xajax to develop a dynamic Web application solution accessing IBM DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.

They look at what Xajax is before getting started (to level the playing field) and then start with the installations and usage:

• Install DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
• Install PHP and Xajax
• Create a DB2 database table
• Sending a request
• Processing a request

By the end, you'll have a simple (form) application that can interact easily with a PHP backend, talking to a DB9 database, that can save catalog information.